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You have good reason to be concerned about your current job if applying for another job is a breach of your contract and the other school has approached your superior asking for references (something not generally done until a job has been applied for and accepted). It was indeed unprofessional of the interested school to contact your supervisor without first clearing the contact with you, but now that they have the only thing you can do is damage control. You did not apply for the job; you have told your supervisor this. That is really all you can do at this point EXCEPT to hire an attorney who is local to you who practices employment law.

Your employment lawyer will be able to tell you better than I if there is any action you can take against the school that is pursuing you so aggressively for contacting your supervisor without your permission.

If your current school dismisses you for breach of contract, you can then appeal the dismissal and subpoena the other school's records about you. This will presumably demonstrate that you never submitted an application and thereby never breached the contract. Unless the TIE service (about which I know nothing) generates an application automatically (and you say it does not), that should be sufficient grounds for you to win your appeal as long as keeping a feeler out in the job market is not also a breach of your employment contract (as it shouldn't be; such a clause could well be found to be unenforceable).

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My question however is whether my superiors can call such and inquiry about other positions a breach of contract if this is not stipulated as such in writing anywhere (not the contract or the faculty handbook). Can they simply assert that it is and terminate me?

Your problem is one of appearance. At this point, you appear to your supervisor have actually applied for the other position (references are not generally requested for people who have not applied for a job), thereby breaching your contract.

Based on that appearance, your employer may conclude that you have breached the contract, whether you did or not. Once they conclude that you have breached, they can terminate you for breach under the terms of your contract. You can appeal the termination.

You NEED an employment lawyer who is local to you. San Francisco has lots of them; you can call the State Bar, the City Bar and/or the County Bar for referrals. Handling an employment appeal is more than we can do for you on this board.

Your employer probably cannot terminate you for just looking around to see what's out there (I don't know the precise terms of your contract so cannot say that for sure), but at this moment, they have the reasonable impression, based on the inquiry for references, that you've done a lot more than just look. They can act based on how the matter looks from their point of view -- and it looks to them like you applied for the other job. You can request the other school send your employer a copy of everything they have on you in their files, but I don't know if that will help you, if they comply with your request; it depends on your employer.

It may be that none of this will happen. Your employer may believe your statement that you never applied for another job and that the contact from the other school was something that you never authorized or knew anything about. That would mean that they would not terminate you.

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